


Vrrrooooommm

by Skyepony



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:47:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22779691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepony/pseuds/Skyepony
Summary: The 'classic' is in the shop again, so....
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Vrrrooooommm

The usual disclaimers, I don't own them, Pet Fly and Paramount may not want them anymore but for some reason they won't let me and the others who love them have them except on loan. I don't make money doing this, but I can dream. P.S. in my universe TSBBS never happened.

VVRRRRRRRRROOOOOOM

He was up to something, I just knew it. It wasn't so much that he was acting weird. Weird was S.O.P. for Sandburg. It wasn't his high level of activity. Anyone who knew him usually equated him with the 'Energizer Bunny' anyhow. I hadn't heard, or seen anything that warned me of specific problems, even though I have better than your average see, hear, smell, touch and taste equipment.

It was just a feeling. Like when the hair on the back of my neck keeps going to attention whenever I notice him over looking through the newspaper in the 'For Sale' stuff.

But though I'd casually managed to saunter behind him and zoom a look at the page, nothing had been circled and the page is full of a miscellaneous assortment of things. Including furniture!

Could he be looking for a new bed maybe? He hadn't mentioned any problem so I had just assumed he'd been content with the futon I'd gotten when I first let him come to live at my place. Let? Yeah, keep telling yourself that Ellison. Like I'd really had any chance of deflecting steamroller Sandburg once he got the idea.

Of course his own place had just been blown to smithereens by a minor war between his drug lab neighbors, and he had been a lot of help getting a handle on the damn hyper senses that had suddenly popped back up in me. And damn he could lay on the most pitiful puppy dog eyes you could ever imagine. Like those goofy pictures of little kids and their pets were the eyes seemed to take up the whole painting! Like that!

So really how in the heck could I have not let him crash at the loft until he got a new place. I lived alone and I did have the spare room. And it had been originally just for a week. Um, that was three years ago? My how time flies when you are in the Sandburg zone!

Sometimes I catch myself using some of his phrases, or looking at something in the childlike fascinated way he does and I wonder which of us has had the most effect on the other.

Longhaired, hippy, love child, non-violent, genius grad student and up tight, establishment, no quarter no surrender, ex-Ranger, lethal weapon type cop. Best friends, partners, even closer than brothers. Just goes to prove miracles sometimes do happen.

For me that is what the kid has been. A miracle. At a point when I had pretty much accepted that for me there could only be the job and nothing else, I was at risk of losing it all. If a recent divorce and the prior loss of a partner weren't bad enough, I was sure I was succumbing to a weird and job ending form of insanity.

Well what would you call it when you suddenly found yourself hearing stuff a mile away, or smell blood from two hundred feet? Try to imagine feeling every thread in your shirt, or seeming to see up close and personal a face in a fifth story window?

Yep, definitely round the bend, post traumatic stress, section eight, wacko time. Jim Ellison, trained, elite soldier, who could kill you with his bare hands in seconds, a psycho. If those thoughts weren't scary enough. Add to the picture now a cop, armed and on the streets.

My oath to serve and protect wouldn't work real well when the people needed protection from me.

Then up pops Sandburg. Another doctor had just finished finding nothing wrong with me, implying that it was all in my head. This child, hell he looked maybe twenty, he finagles his way into the exam room and proceeds to spout this wave of mumbo jumbo. Bottom line, he says there is someone who knows what's going on and knows how to help me.

He hands me a card with a name at Rainier University and vanishes.

I was desperate, I admit it. My job had become my whole world. No family, we're pretty much as estranged as you can get. No Army, my team was dead and buried in Peru. No wife, she couldn't deal with the way I 'locked out everyone, distrusted everyone, including her'. Her words, not mine. She couldn't understand. As a cop you have to have a real thick shell or the shit you see and hear every day makes eating one of your own bullets real attractive. And the kind of upbringing I had was about as touchy feely as boot camp. In my fathers eyes any talk about feelings, or love or even a hug was unmanly and a sign of weakness.

Losing my job would have been the last straw. I'd lost way too much in my life to lose that to. When somebody dangled hope in front of me, you bet I jumped for it. So I went to see Sandburg. We met, I went ballistic and he saved my butt. The rest as they say is history.

But I'm getting off the subject... getting like him, thoughts flying around like sonic speed butterflies. Anyway, he's up to something, and I am responding like any self-respecting 'Blessed Protector' would. I'm alternating between suspicious, worried, and scared. With Sandburg it could be anything. No day is complete without his minimum daily requirement of trouble. And the fact that the last couple of weeks had been disaster free did nothing to ease my mind. I just kept waiting for the inevitable.

There he is with Rafe again. This was the third time this week my GQ cover guy fellow detective has given Sandburg a lift home when I couldn't get free and he'd had University stuff he had to get to. Blair's beloved 'classic' Volvo had thrown a rod and wasn't repairable until the mechanic could find parts, in the junkyard mind you.

Now the two were walking toward the elevator almost in a huddle. Of their own volition my Sentinel senses tuned in to their conversation. Yeah I know, ease dropping is rude...but sometimes I have no control of these darn senses. HEY! It's true!

"It sound's perfect Rafe!" Naturally I tune into him first. Something about Sandburg pulls my senses like metal shavings to a magnet.

"I thought it would suit your need, and my neighbor treated it well. It's in prime condition." What was Rafe's neighbor trying to pawn off on the kid?

Even though the elevator had closed and started down my ears continued to follow. "Yeah, and the price sure is right! Thanks man, I really appreciate your setting this up. It'll solve everything." Okay Chief, what had Rafe 'set up'?

"I like that he gave it a Native American name. It's so appropriate." Sandburg's voice had both a wistful and excited edge to it.

"What about Jim? You think he'll freak? I definitely remember how he feels about cycles." CYCLE!... as in motorcycle!

"Yeah, he'll freak at first. But after the initial explosion he'll really look at it and see that it's a good solution to the problem of my transportation." Yeah Chief, your transportation to the local hospital! Sandburg had enough trouble staying in one piece; no way he was going to tool around on a two wheeled coma guarantee.

"You going to pick it up now?"

"If you're willing to drop me off there I would sure like to!"

"You got it Blair. This I have got to see!"

I couldn't believe this. We'd had this conversation once before, when Rafe (soon to be dead for bringing it up again) had bought a fully tooled out Harley Davidson. Black satin and went from zero to beyond what the law allows in 6 seconds.

Sandburg had looked like a kid at the window of a toy store. Luckily when Rafe had let the kid try it out...when I wasn't around mind you, the thing had been too heavy for the wiry grad student to keep upright while he tried to jump-start it. After several tries and having had it almost fall over with him several times he got it started. He revved the engine, put it in gear and the overpowered engine did an instant wheelie and dumped him on his can.

Rider less, the brand new bike had squealed off for about fifty feet before thankfully piling harmlessly into a shrub nearby. The Harley was slightly scratched and Blair walked with a limp for two days.

I thought I'd handled it pretty well considering. Blair, all one hundred and thirty pounds soaking wet of him, could have easily wrapped himself around a telephone pole on that first try. Road rash butt was inconsequential to what could have been. When I arrived he was just picking himself up off the pavement, with some anxious assistance from Rafe.

So I felt like I was pretty reasonable when I didn't rip off Rafe's perfectly groomed head. All I did was pin him against the wall and threatened to scoop out his brains through his ears if he every failed to use the organ in regards to my partner's safety again.

Sandburg had intervened, butt burn not withstanding, pealing me off Rafe just as I was getting a real head of steam up. I couldn't avoid imagining Blair, broken and bleeding. I had a strong hate for cycles.

You see I'd ridden a cycle before joining the Army. The summer of my eighteenth year my best friend and fellow biker had had his throttle stick while goofing around racing. He'd smashed into the median and been thrown thirty feet. He lingered for three months, paralyzed and brain damaged. I'd never forgotten. I started driving trucks after that.

Once I'd assured myself that the kid wasn't really hurt, I'd tried to read him the riot act. He'd gotten pissed, slung around lines like "you're not my keeper" and "I am an adult, I decide what I do and don't do." It had been a miserable week of us hackling each time we were around each other. I couldn't get past the image of my childhood friend's untimely end and he couldn't get past my trying to force him to do things my way.

As usual it was Sandburg who initiated reconciliation. He got me to sit down and talk instead of scream and order and demand. He'd sat and told me his feelings. How hurt he was I didn't trust him to make his own decisions. That he had already decided the bike was way to powerful for him to safely manage, but that he didn't appreciate being 'ordered' to stay away from it.

I had, as usual, clammed up and refused at first to express any of my own feelings. But one thing about Blair, he is tenacious. Oh, real gentle, compassionate, empathic, what ever you want to call it, but absolutely unstoppable! He sat and talked, and cajoled and prompted and nagged and pleaded with those damn eyes, and generally wore me down until I finally let him pull out of me the whole story. My friend's accident, my horror at the Deja' Vu of that days event, my terror at the thought of losing my Guide and best friend in the same way.

He'd looked at me with those eyes that held both a child's wonder and an ancient's wisdom and then had just flung his arms around me in an 'all is forgiven' hug. He promised not to try and ride Rafe's machine and said he was sorry he had scared me.

Did I mention in my father's house hugs ceased to exist in our vocabulary after my mother baled out on us? Well since I've had Blair in my life I have not only had it returned to my vocabulary... but also I've gotten quite fluent. So if his hug was one of forgiveness, the one I returned was one of gratitude, and I squeezed the stuffing out of him.

But here he was, planning to buy a motorcycle in spite of his promise? Worse. He'd mentioned how appropriate it was that it was named after a Native American. Hell the only reason I could think of for that comment was that the damn bike was one of the old classic bikes, an Indian!

Those Indians had been wall-to-wall horsepower. But they were slightly lighter and lower to the ground than a Harley was. One of them didn't require as much muscle to keep it upright and pop the kick-start. Sandburg was just about the right size for it.

I found myself up and standing by the elevator. I don't even remember getting up! But I could already hear the distinct sound of the brown sedan Rafe used at work pulling out of the garage below. No way I could catch up with them.

Returning to my desk I forced myself to concentrate on completing the last of the paperwork on the case I'd just finished. Sandburg had done 90% of it before he'd left. But there were some things that just had to be filled in by the Detective who'd actually done the collar. So I sat and read, and reread, and read again the damn report. Unable to keep focus enough to remember the content from one paragraph to another. Instead fuming about broken promises, sneaky Guides, and what I planned to do to Rafe, and the motorcycle and possibly even Blair!

I was just trying to remember where I kept the sledgehammer in the basement when I tuned in to the fact that someone was standing right by my desk. Startled I swung my gaze up to find my boss with his arms crossed over his chest, just standing there. His eyebrows where arched and he did not look amused.

Suddenly I felt like Sandburg must when Simon would glower at him from his impressive 6 foot 4. "Um.. Captain?"

"Glad you rejoined the planet Ellison." His voice was always so deep it sounded intimidating even when he was in a good mood. Which he wasn't now? "I asked you for that report an hour ago. I've been standing here for five minutes watching you read the same page ten times and try to grind your teeth to powder." He leaned in, putting his hands on the desk across from me. "What's up Jim?" A trace of concern inched into the question. But then he studied my face for a moment, glanced around the room to make sure no one was in hearing range. "Or is this one of those Sentinel things that I don't really want to know about?"

A brief smile relaxed the clenched muscles of my jaw. Simon had had an illustrious but generally normal life before my enhanced senses and an extremely unorthodox grad student had gone and knocked it all off kilter.

Now he winced whenever a case took a left turn into the Sandburg zone. Not many police Captains had to deal with Shaman's, spirit guides, ghosts, and some of the other less than run of the mill things that seemed to track down Sandburg and I.

But this wasn't a Sentinel thing. My face became stormy again as I returned to my previous train of thought. "Sandburg's buying a motorcycle Simon." I shook my head with a mixture of anger, sadness and confusion. "I just don't get it. He promised after that mess with Rafe's Harley that he wouldn't try it again." I looked up at my Captain and friend. "He knows how I feel about cycles. I can't believe he'd just ignore my feelings on this?"

"Jim. We both know Sandburg would never intentionally do something to hurt you. But right now he has no way to get to work or the station. He's totally dependant on you or someone else to get around. Also we know that money is always a problem for the kid. No way he can afford a car." Simon was looking down at me like a patient father explaining why another boy could have a certain toy and I couldn't. It was almost funny.

"If Sandburg is buying a cycle it is probably because that is all he can afford. Talk to him Jim. And for God's sake don't start off with threats or demands." He waggled his finger at me in warning. "I will not have you and him stomping around here like two grumpy five year olds expecting the other to apologize first. It had the whole department upset."

I knew what he meant. There was something about Sandburg. Maybe it was his eternal optimistic outlook, or his enthusiasm and energy. But since Blair had started being my partner he had become an integral part of Major Crimes. His presence seemed to comfort, motivate, warm and generally support not just my Sentinel self, but all the members of our tight knit group. When he was missing, sick, hurt, scared or upset, all of Major Crimes seemed to vibrate off key.

Reaching down Simon grabbed the report from under my hands. "Ellison, give me that report. It s as done as it's likely to get in your present state of mind. Go find your partner and get this straightened out."

For a moment my stubborn streak reared it's head and I started to argue. But that's another thing Sandburg's helped me with. I'm less prone to let my tongue trip over my pride.

"Thanks Simon." I agreed appreciatively as I grabbed my light jacket off the hook and headed for the door.

As I climbed into my truck a few seconds later it occurred to me I had no idea where Blair was. Somewhere out there he was getting on a motorcycle with enough power to break every speed law in the city. What if he lost control right off the bat? What if it wasn't in as good condition as Rafe thought and it blew a tire at speed or the throttle stuck? God... if anything happened to that kid I truly doubted I'd be able to carry on. He had become as necessary to my life as food and air.

"Where are you buddy?" I asked the air around me. Of course I got no answer. Though there was some kind of spooky link between he and I, it didn't always turn on when I wanted it to. It would have been pretty handy a couple of times one or the other of us had been snatched. But it had worked when it was really important. At the fountain I'd been in time, everything else was gravy!

Frustrated I turned the key and started the truck with a roar. As I pulled out of the garage I automatically steered toward the campus. Blair had left early to make an important meeting at the University. He may have detoured to get the bike, but I knew that was where he would be within the hour.

The weather was beautiful out, one of the truly temperate spring days we have sometimes. Obviously many of the locals where taking advantage of it because traffic was a little heavy but I made it to Rainier in no time.

Pulling into the faculty lot I looked around for any sign of an unfamiliar motorcycle. But there were no cycles at all. Yet.

As if summoned by my thoughts, Rafe's sedan pulled into the lot. He steered into a slot near the entrance so he didn't see my truck or me at the other end. There was no one in the passenger seat.

I dialed up my hearing and couldn't hear the tell tale sound of a motorcycle approaching. Where the hell was Sandburg?

When my hearing of it's own accord pulled in a odd, rapid, little 'pfissst ommp, pfissst ommp, pfissst ommp' sound approaching, I easily discarded the lawn mower engine type noise as nuisance clatter.

As Rafe climbed out of his car I was out of the truck and nearly pouncing on him. I guess I had moved kind of quiet because he almost jumped out of his skin when I grabbed hold of his arm.

"Jeez Ellison, give me a heart attack!" He muttered as he saw who had latched onto him. But then he looked up at my face and I watched the color drain from his face. "Uhhh, something wrong Jim?" He asked with just barely contained nervousness.

"You dropped Blair off to pick up his new bike huh Rafe?" I asked in what I considered a blasé tone. I guess it came out more a growl than a question because the nattily clad Detectives Adam's apple did a couple of bobs up and down before he gulped out an answer.

"Yyyou know about that? Oh. Um. Yeah. He asked. You know. Um. I was giving him a lift. You know, his car being DOA and all. Um. Ahh. Ouch!" I didn't realize but I think my grip on the guys arm had been getting progressively tighter as he stumbled through his response, because he was definitely grimacing by the end.

"Jim! What the hell are you doing?" Suddenly Blair's surprised and slightly alarmed voice was right behind me. I hadn't even noticed his arrival. I dropped Rafe's arm like it was hot and plastered a calm and rational expression on my face as I turned. I didn't want him to see that I was hurt at his having broken a promise, or notice my anger at his going behind my back. No. I was going to be in total control here. THEN I'd take a sledgehammer to the damn thing!

As I released his arm Rafe babbled out a quick "See ya Sandburg!" and was back in his car with the door slammed before I blinked. As soon as I turned my back he was pulling out to leave.

My pivot brought me almost face to face with Blair who had been just behind me. Just as I started to open my mouth I looked down and froze.

"What are you doing here? Hey why did it look like you were ready to rip Rafe's arm off? I'm glad you're here; I had a surprise to show you. Well Jim. Don't just stand there man. What do you think? Isn't it cool? Or isn't She cool? Man, her owner always talks about her as 'her' and 'she' you know. Like she's a real girl, but hey, whatever works. He's treated her like one of his kids. Garaged and regular trips to the mechanic for his 'Tonka'. That's her name, Tonka; it's Sioux for horse. Apropos huh? All original paint and chrome." I will never know how the guy can manage to say so much without taking a breath. Olympic swimmers don't have that much lung capacity! His face was lit like he had just been given the newest, hottest toy that all the kids in the neighborhood wanted.

My relief was almost palatable. I could only stand there, my jaw hanging open staring at Blair and the bike he still sat on.

A Vespa scooter. Metallic glitter blue with large chrome lights and rear wheel well. Thin spoke tires, leather saddlebags and deep padded seat. Eagle feathers fluttered from the antennae sticking up from the single round taillight. It was short enough for the kid to straddle it and still have his feet firmly on the ground.

Back in the sixties and seventies the small putt putts had swarmed around Cascade each spring through summer. Almost every student at the University and most of the teachers had owned one.

As a teen, when I'd gotten my powerful, macho motorcycle I'd sneered at those who had the zippy little Italian scooters. But the diminutive bikes that got unimaginable mileage and had so few parts to go wrong had become collectors items when they where withdrawn from the American market. I had heard recently that they were going to be coming back to the States in 2001, but hadn't otherwise even remembered they existed. This one was from around the end of the sixties, but was in mint condition.

As all these thoughts were running through my brain, apparently Sandburg had a few thoughts running through his.

"Jim, how come you're here?" He asked with a noticeable suspicious tone to his voice. I found myself looking square into those deep blue eyes of his that made me so aware of how damn transparent I was to him. His mouth twisted into an impatient frown. "You knew I was getting this didn't you? You eavesdropped on Rafe and I as we were leaving... didn't you?" Shaking his head disapprovingly he continued to focus his eyes on my face, reading my expression and body language like the familiar book it was. "You wouldn't have gotten off early and come here just to see my new bike. You thought I was getting one of those monsters like Rafe has! You eavesdropped and figured I was breaking my promise so you'd what... break a few bones? Man, when I drove in I knew something was up. You looked ready to rip Rafe's arm off and beat him with it."

Hell I hate it when he does that. He may not be a cop but between his anthropology training and his intuitive ability to read people he was the best natural detective I have ever known.

"I didn't hurt him...just scared him a little." I replied matter of factly. That's the difference between us, when Blair gets caught doing something questionable, he 'obfuscates', and I just plead the fifth or deny any wrong doing entirely.

"Yeah, I'll say! Damn it Jim, Rafe really helped me out here and you come on like Conan." He looked at me with a combination of pissed off and disappointed. The pissed off I could deal with, but that disappointed look pulled all my strings.

"Hey, I just reacted, okay Chief. I heard 'cycle' and suddenly it was that whole damn vision of you doing a kamikaze and smearing yourself across the highway." I looked at his tightlipped expression. "I can't help it buddy, I worry about you." I tried to put on puppy dog eyes myself, but I should have known he'd see right through it.

"Jim!" He burst out laughing. "Big guy, take it from me, it is realllllyyy hard for a six foot two buff ex ranger to pull off looking pathetic."

I smiled in response to his grin. He had one of those smiles that glowed from his hair to toes and just made everyone around him feel good. It's a gift and he is extremely well endowed.

"Well Darwin, I have to start mastering it if I'm ever going to stand a fighting chance coping with you, aren't I?"

"Coping! Coping with me? Hey, who has so many rules that Hoyles is thinking of printing an abridged edition of them all. Who drives pursuits so fast they owe money for windows broken by the sonic boom?

Who has to have Wonder burgers for dinner at least once a week or they go into cholesterol withdrawal? I think I'm the one who has to be commended for MY coping!"

I slung an arm over his shoulders and ruffled his long hair with the other. "Well lets call it a draw on the coping competition, okay?" Looking down at the pocket-sized motor scooter I shook my head in dismay. "Chief, I gotta ask...whats the story and... why is the fact that this thing has a Native American name appropriate. You scared me spitless. I thought you'd gone and gotten an Indian!"

"Man Jim, you eavedropped the whole damn conversation didn't you? I'm going to have to start carrying a white noise generator just to have privacy!" He made a soft 'tisk tisk' sound and shook his head with disapproval, but the dancing laughter in his eyes told me I was already forgiven. "Tonka's owner has to go to Europe on assignment, he's a photographer, and he's letting me keep her until winter. Free! So the money I save on gas and stuff will pay for the repairs on the Volvo which will be my only mode of transport come winter. No way I could tool around Cascade in the open come winter, hell even fall is to cold. Brrrrrrr." He shivered dramatically. Then tilted his head in thought.

"An Indian? Oh you mean one of those low, mean looking old bikes they rode in Easy Rider. Cool looking. But how the hell did you think I could afford one of those expensive antiques when I can't even get enough together to fix my Volvo?"

I had plunked down next to him on the long cushioned seat of the mini cycle. He had to twist and look up to see my face, which I am ashamed to say showed I didn't have a clue for a answer. How the hell DID I think Sandburg could afford a collectable cycle that probably cost more then two new cars?

He burst out laughing all over again. God I could never get enough of that sound, for some reason it was as relaxing as a quick nap.

"Duh!" He snickered then smack my arm. "It is appropriate that she has a Native American name because her owner is John Bigtree an Ogalala Sioxe… so….." He looked at me expectantly.

And I still did not have a clue. So I looked right back him and said, "Soooooooo….WHAT?"

He snickered again and patted the shiny chrome handlebars. "Jim, this model of scooter is the Vespa 'Pony'!"

As punchlines went it was incredibly anti climatic but I finally caught on to the twisted Sandburg humor.

"So it, excuse me, she, is a Indian's Pony? Isn't that sort of not politically correct Chief?" Then I winced as I realized how the nickname I had given him underlined the joke. I recognized the sign posts, I was taking a left turn into the Sandburg zone, I just knew it.

"Yeah I guess you're right about that Kemosabi!" He waggled his eyebrows at me in a mischievious challenge. "Want a lift?"

I looked at the small shiny motor on the scooter. "Think she's got the 'horse'power Tonto?"

"Well let's saddle up and see!" He patted the seat behind him and chuckled when I sat and the poor thing almost squatted on its haunches. My knees were almost at Sandburgs waist as I had to fold my over six feet nearly in half to keep my legs from dragging. Propping my feet on the tiny little posts sticking out from the hind wheel I wrapped my arms around Blairs chest.

He slapped my hands away from the throttles when I made a cat quick grab for them. "No way big guy! This time I drive." and he cackled like a madman.

With a carefree laugh that I soon echoed, the no longer lone ex Ranger and his irrepressible Guide rode off into the sunset with a hearty pfissst ommp, pfissst ommp, pfissst ommp'.

End

Thank you Susan for the home.

Feedback welcome at skyepony.g@gmail.com. 


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